Information storage medium storing text-based subtitle, and apparatus and method for processing text-based subtitle

ABSTRACT

An information storage medium storing subtitle text-based information, and a method and apparatus utilizing same, process a subtitle The information storage medium includes: dialog information which contains script text information of the subtitle and information specifying an output type of the script text; and presentation information which contains style information used to convert the script text into a bitmap format through rendering. With this structure, the amount of data required for a subtitle and the amount of data that should be processed when a subtitle is output may be greatly reduced.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/956,342, which claims the priorities of Korean Patent Application No.2003-69023, filed on Oct. 4, 2003, and No. 2004-16103, filed on Mar. 10,2004 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosures ofwhich are incorporated herein in their entireties by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a subtitle, and more particularly, to atext based subtitle, and an apparatus and method for processing thesubtitle.

2. Description of the Related Art

A conventional subtitle is generated in the form of a bitmap image andis included in an MPEG stream. Since the subtitle has a bitmap imageformat, it is inconvenient to generate the subtitle, and a user has topassively accept a variety of attributes of the subtitle defined andprovided by a subtitle producer. That is, a user cannot select thestyle, of the subtitle, such as the color of text, the size of the text,or the output direction of the text. Accordingly, a user watches asubtitle with a monotonous style.

Generally, a subtitle of a movie uses some typical formats withoutfrequent changes in the output style, such as changes in text color,text position, text size, and text shape. To render text, each characterneeds diverse information regarding its color, size, position and shape.If this rendering information is added to each sentence of a subtitle,it provides an advantage that a different style may be specified foreach sentence. However, in a movie script which uses only some typicalstyles, the advantage of the capability of providing various styles isoutweighed by the disadvantage that the amount of data required for asubtitle and the amount of data to be processed increase.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides an information storage medium storing atext based subtitle.

The present invention also provides a subtitle processing apparatus andmethod by which the subtitle may be output in a variety of ways.

According to an aspect of the present invention, an information storagemedium storing multimedia data includes: audio/visual (AV) data; andsubtitle data comprising script text data that is output insynchronization with the AV data, and output style information in a textformat specifying the output type of the script text.

The subtitle data may be recorded in the form of a markup document or inthe form of binary data.

According to another aspect of the present invention, an informationstorage medium storing text based subtitle information includes: dialoginformation comprising script text information of the subtitle andinformation specifying an output type of the script text; andpresentation information which contains style information used to renderand display the script text.

The dialog information and/or the presentation information may berecorded in the form of a markup document or in the form of binary data.

The dialog information may include: script text data; a start time thatindicates when the script text is to begin being displayed; an end timethat indicates when the display of the script text is to end; and styledata that specifies a display style to be used when the script text isrendered.

The presentation information may include at least one stylegroup inwhich display style information is recorded, and a stylegroup thatincludes at least one style in which information to be used forrendering and a display style of script text is recorded.

The stylegroup may include style information that cannot be changed by auser, and the at least one style includes style information that ischanged by a user.

The style information included in a style selected by the user may beapplied to the style information included in the stylegroup in which theselected style is included to change the output type of script text.

The style information included in the selected style may replace, may beadded to, or may be subtracted from, style information included in thestylegroup in which the selected style is included.

The script text included in the dialog information may specify one ofthe stylegroups and the user may select one of the at least one stylesincluded in the specified stylegroup, and, by using information recordedin the specified stylegroup and information recorded in the selectedstyle, the script text may be displayed.

The script text included in the dialog information may specify one of aplurality of styles included in the stylegroup, and the user may selectone of the at least one stylegroup, and by using information recorded inthe specified style and information recorded in the selected stylegroup,the script text may be displayed.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, a textsubtitle processing apparatus includes: a text subtitle parser whichextracts presentation information and dialog information from text basedsubtitle data; and a text layout/font renderer which, by referring tothe presentation information, renders the extracted dialog information,and generates an image of script text.

The apparatus may further include: a buffer which reads text basedsubtitle data and font data from a disc and stores the data; and apresentation engine which reads the rendered script text image andbitmap type script text data, generates a graphic image by combining arendered script text image and the bitmap type script text data.

According to yet still another aspect of the present invention, a textsubtitle processing method includes: reading and storing text basedsubtitle data and font data; extracting presentation information anddialog information from the subtitle data; rendering script text andgenerating a text image by using the extracted presentation informationand dialog information; reading subtitle data in the form of a bitmapimage; combining the subtitle data with the rendered text image; andoutputting the combined image.

According to a further aspect of the present invention, a computerreadable recording medium has stored thereon a computer program of themethod.

Additional aspects and/or advantages of the invention will be set forthin part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obviousfrom the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and/or other features and advantages of the present inventionwill become more apparent by describing in detail exemplary embodimentsthereof with reference to the attached drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the structure of a text based subtitlefile in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating information required for renderingscript text, and text output rendered according to the information inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3A illustrates a markup document defining stylegroups in accordancewith an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3B illustrates another markup document defining stylegroups inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4A illustrates a markup document in which basic style informationis defined in a stylegroup in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 4B illustrates another markup document in which basic styleinformation is recorded in a stylegroup in accordance with an embodimentof the present invention;

FIG. 5A illustrates an example of a markup language tag used to displaya subtitle in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5B illustrates another example of a markup language tag used todisplay a subtitle in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 6A illustrates a relationship between dialog information andpresentation information in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 6B illustrates another relationship between dialog information andpresentation information in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 7A is a diagram to illustrate how a style is changed by a stylechange command in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 7B is a diagram to illustrate how a stylegroup is changed by astylegroup change command in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 8A is a diagram illustrating how style information required forrendering each script item is selected for presentation informationformed as shown in FIG. 4A;

FIGS. 8B and 8C are diagrams illustrating how style information requiredfor rendering each script item is selected for presentation informationformed as shown in FIG. 4B;

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a text based subtitle processing apparatusaccording to an embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a text based subtitle processingmethod according to an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Reference will now be made in detail to the embodiments of the presentinvention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanyingdrawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elementsthroughout. The embodiments are described below to explain the presentinvention by referring to the figures.

Referring to FIG. 1, a text based subtitle file 100 includes dialoginformation 110, presentation information 120, and meta data 130A and130B.

The dialog information 110 includes script text, the output start timeof the text, the output end time, stylegroup or style information to beused to render text, text change effect information such asfade-in/fade-out, and a formatting code for text.

The formatting code includes code to express text in bold, code toexpress text in Italics, code to underline, code to indicate a linechange, and or the like.

The presentation information 120 includes style information to be usedto render script text and is formed with a plurality of stylegroups. Astylegroup is a bundle of styles in which style information is recorded.

A style includes information to be used to render and outout script textonto a screen. Examples of such information are the name of a style,fonts, text colors, background colors, text size, a text output region,the start position of text output, an output direction, an alignmentmethod, and on the like.

Depending on which information is defined as a style and as astylegroup, the scope of attributes that a user may change varies, and amethod to specify style information will be explained below.

The meta data 130A and 130B is additional information regarding movingpictures, and includes information required to perform additionalfunctions other than outputting a subtitle.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating information required to render scripttext, and a screen rendered and output according to the information.

Output region information (I, t, w, h) 210 indicates a region in whichtext is to be output, and indicates that the region has coordinates (l,t) as a start position, with a width w and a height h. Output startposition information (x, y) 220 indicates a reference point when text isoutput on the screen, and indicates that the reference point should bewithin region (I, t, w, h). Text alignment information 222 specifies thealignment method of the text. The text may be left-justified,center-justified or right-justified. When the text is left-justified, itextends rightward from the output start position (x,y). When the text iscenter-justified, it is centered around the output start position (x,y).When the text is right-justified, it extends leftward from the outputstart position (x,y). In FIG. 2, an example is shown in which the textis output in a left-justified manner.

Font size information 230 indicates the size of text to be output. Lineheight information 240 indicates line spacing of text. Background colorinformation 250 defines the background color of the output region (l, t,w, h). Text color information 260 defines the color of text to beoutput. A font name 270 specifies the font to be used for textrendering.

A formatting code 280 and character data 290 are included in the dialoginformation 110. The formatting code 280 may include code for linechanges, bolding, Italicizing, and underlining text, and the characterdata 290 is script text information to be displayed as the subtitle. Theoutput direction of text may be defined as (left->right, top->bottom) or(top->bottom, right->left). In FIG. 2, the output direction is(left->right, top->bottom). The various information described above,excluding the formatting code 280 and the character data 290, isincluded in the presentation information 120.

There are a variety of methods of expressing information required fortext rendering in a text based subtitle. By defining a structure inwhich each piece of information is recorded, a binary format structuremay be formed, or a markup format corresponding to the informationstructure may be used. Unlike the markup document in which theinformation is recorded as text, information stored in the binary formatis represented by a series of binary data in predetermined byte units.That is, for example, a predetermined number of first bytes may be usedfor the name of a style, the next bytes for a font, and the next bytesfor text colors. In this manner, information required for rendering isrecorded in a binary format. Hereinafter, information structure will beexplained as an example.

There are a variety of methods of forming a style and a stylegroup toindicate style information to be used to render and display each scriptsentence included in the dialog information 101.

In a method, each script sentence included in the dialog information 110specifies a stylegroup and a user selects one of the styles included inthe specified stylegroup. In another method, a user selects astylegroup, and each script sentence included in the dialog information110 specifies one of a plurality of styles included in the stylegroup.Thus, all information required to render a script sentence is includedin a style and a producer may change any piece of style information tobe used to render an output script according to a user's selection. Thatis, if a user changes the output style of a script, all pieces ofinformation may be changed according to style information provided bythe producer.

The various cases described above will now be explained in more detailwith reference to FIGS. 3A through 6B. FIG. 3A illustrates a markupdocument defining stylegroups in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention. The presentation information is recorded in the formof a styleset, and the styleset includes a plurality of stylegroupsdefined by a producer. Each of the stylegroups has a name attributeindicating the name of each group, and each group is identified by thestylegroup name indicated by the name attribute. The stylegroup is abundle of attribute information used to output a subtitle according to astyle desired by the producer.

For example, if a producer wants the subtitle of a movie title to beoutput with a large font size at the center of a screen, the subtitle tobe output on the bottom of the screen with a font size that does notaffect viewing of the movie, and the subtitle of actors at the endingpart of the movie to be center-justified on the entire screen, then theproducer divides a style set into three stylegroups, “Title”, “Script”,and “Casting”, defines each of the stylegroups, and assigns one of thethree stylegroups defined in the presentation information to each scriptrecorded in the dialog information of the subtitle file. Thesestylegroups cannot be changed by a user who is watching the movie.

Each of the styles includes styles in which information required torender text is recorded. A style includes a name to identify the styleand various information items required to render text. In a stylegroup,a plurality of styles may be defined, and it is preferable that thenumber of styles and style names defined in each stylegroup be identicalfor all of the stylegroups. Since the first style among the plurality ofstyles defined in a stylegroup may be selected as a default, or adefault style may be selected by a producer, a style selected as adefault is applied to text rendering when a first subtitle is output onthe screen, and if the style is changed arbitrarily by a user when themovie is reproduced, then the style specified by the user is applied tothe text rendering thereafter.

FIG. 3B is markup document defining stylegroups in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 3B, Title,Script, and Casting are three classifications of a subtitle and aredefined as styles. The stylegroups including these three styles areclassified as Small, Normal, and Large according to the output style ofthe script text. In each script sentence of dialog information, a styledefined in presentation information is specified. In this case, since afirst stylegroup may be selected as a default or a default stylegroupcan be selected by a producer, a style indicated by each script sentenceof dialog information among styles included in the stylegroup selectedas a default, is applied to text rendering when a first subtitle isoutput on the screen, and if the stylegroup is changed by a user whenthe movie is reproduced, then a style included in the stylegroupspecified by the user is applied to the text rendering thereafter.

When presentation information is defined as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, ifa user changes the style, all style information items change. However,depending on the case, changing only part of the style information maybe more efficient, and for this, presentation information may be definedas shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B.

FIG. 4A is a markup document in which basic style information is definedin a stylegroup in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention. Unlike the presentation information shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B,in FIG. 4A a stylegroup includes information that does not change when ascript output style is changed by a user. Also, the stylegroup includesone or more styles which include style information that may be changedby user's selection, and each style is identified by a name attribute.

Referring to FIG. 4A, a styleset includes three types of stylegroups,identified by “Title”, “Script”, and “Casting”. Each of the stylegroupsincludes font, color, background, align, region, and lineheightinformation maintaining fixed values even when a style is changed by auser, and also includes three styles, “normal font”, “small font”, and“large font”, having size, position and direction information whosevalues change when a style is changed by the user. A style may have adefault attribute used to indicate a default style selected by aproducer, or a first style may be selected as a default.

In this case, font, color, background, align, region and lineheightstyle information included in a stylegroup and size, position, anddirection style information included in a style selected by the user orin a default style are utilized to form a complete set of styleinformation to be used to render script text.

FIG. 4B is another markup document in which basic style information isdefined in a stylegroup in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention. As in FIG. 4A, a stylegroup having presentation informationshown in FIG. 4B includes all style information required to renderscript text. Also, the stylegroup includes one or more styles, whichinclude style information that may be changed by a user's selection, andeach style is identified by a name attribute.

Referring to FIG. 4B, a styleset includes three types of stylegroups,identified by “Title”, “Script”, and “Casting”. Each of the stylegroupsincludes font, color, background, align, region, lineheight, size,position, and direction information to be used to render a script, andincludes two styles, “small font” and “large font”, which include size,position, and direction information, whose values change when a style ischanged by the user.

When there is no change to be input by the user, to form a complete setof style information to be used to render script text, only font, color,background, align, region, lineheight, size, position, and directionstyle information items included in a stylegroup are used. If a style ischanged by the user, size, position, and direction information includedin the selected style are applied to the size, position, and directioninformation, and the output style of the script is changed.

At this time, the values included in the stylegroup may be replaced bythe values included in the selected style, or the values included in theselected style may be added to the values included in the stylegroup.When the latter method is used, the values of size, position, anddirection attributes included in the style may be expressed as positiveor negatives numbers, and the values included in the stylegroup may beadded to, or subtracted from, the numbers.

FIG. 5A illustrates an example of a markup tag used to display asubtitle in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. A<text> tag is used as a unit to classify scripts to be output on thescreen. Attribute information included in the <text> tag includes“start,” which indicates a time when the output of text starts, and“end,” which indicates a time when output ends, as time information forscreen output, “effect,” which indicates change effects to be applied totext such as fade-in/fade-out, and “stylegroup”, which indicates styleinformation to be used to render text. Also, a script to be output onthe screen is recorded in the <text> tag.

Referring to FIG. 5A, the script text, “John! ride . . . ”, is renderedusing a default style among a plurality of styles included in astylegroup “Script”, or style information specified by the user, and byapplying a “fade-in” effect, the text is displayed at the start time“00:10:00” and gradually becomes clearer until the end time, “00:10:15”.

FIG. 5B illustrates another example of a markup language tag used todisplay a subtitle in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention. Referring to FIG. 5B, a <text> tag specifies a style insteadof a stylegroup render script text. In this case, the script textincluded in the <text> tag is rendered using a default style “Script”among a plurality of styles included in a stylegroup specified by theuser.

FIG. 6A illustrates a relationship between dialog information andpresentation information in accordance with the present invention. Asdescribed above with reference to FIG. 5A, each <text> tag, whichincludes dialog information, has a stylegroup field that indicates styleinformation to be used to render text. The stylegroup field indicatesone of a plurality of stylegroups stored in a styleset of presentationinformation, and among the styles included in the specified stylegroup,a default style or a style specified by the user provides informationrequired to render text.

Referring to FIG. 6A, two <text> tags indicate stylegroups “Title” and“Script”, respectively. Each of the two <text> tags corresponds to oneof the styles included in the corresponding stylegroup “Title” or“Script” recorded in the presentation information.

FIG. 6B illustrates another relationship between dialog information andpresentation information in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention. Each <text> tag indicates a style, not a stylegroup, as textrendering information, and the corresponding style information isrecorded as one of a plurality of styles included in a plurality ofstylegroups stored in presentation information. Referring to FIG. 6B,two <text> tags, which include dialog information indicating style“Title” and “Script”, respectively, are included in one of thestylegroups “Small” and “Normal” recorded in the presentationinformation.

A user operation and an application program interface (API) for the userto change a style will now be explained in detail with reference toFIGS. 7A and 7B. FIG. 7A is a diagram illustrating how a style ischanged by a style change command. Referring to FIG. 7A, stylegroups“Title”, “Script”, and “Casting” are defined with each of thestylegroups, including styles “Small”, “Normal”, and “Large”. Thestylegroup “Title” uses center-justification, and outputs text in blue,the stylegroup “Script” uses left-justification from the bottomleft-hand side and outputs text in black, and the stylegroup “Casting”uses right-justification from the top right-hand side and outputs textin red. The styles “Small”, “Normal”, and “Large” have style informationindicating output in small-sized letters, medium-sized letters, andlarge-sized letters, respectively.

At time “00:10:00”, stylegroup “Title” is used as information to rendertext, and the default style “Small” included in the stylegroup “Title”is used as the style information. When the text style is changed intothe style “Normal” by the user during reproduction of the movie, thestyle “Normal” of stylegroup “Title” is used as style information. Also,when the stylegroup changes at the time “00:10:20” with the progress ofthe movie, the style “Normal” of the stylegroup “Script” is used, andwhen the stylegroup changes into “Casting” at the time “01:10:25”, thestyle “Normal” selected by the user is continuously applied using thestylegroup “Casting”.

FIG. 7B is a diagram illustrating how a stylegroup is changed by astylegroup change command. Referring to FIG. 7B, stylegroups “Small”,“Normal”, and “Large” are defined, and each stylegroup includes styles“Title”, “Script”, and “Casting”. At time “00:10:00”, style informationof the style “Title” included in default stylegroup “Small” is used asinformation to render text. When the stylegroup is changed from “Small”into “Normal” by the user during the reproduction of the movie, thestyle “Title” of the stylegroup “Normal” is used as style information.Also, when the style changes from “Title” into “Script” at the timebecomes “00:10:20” with the progress of the movie, the style “Script” ofthe stylegroup “Normal” is used, and when the style is changed to“Casting” at the time “01:10:25”, the style “Casting” included in thestylegroup “Normal” specified by the user is applied.

FIG. 8A is a diagram illustrating how style information required torender each script item is selected for presentation information formed,as shown in FIG. 4A. Each script of dialog information indicates one ofone or more stylegroups included in a styleset. Also, one of one or morestyles included in each of the stylegroups is selected, and if there isno user selection, a style “Normal” is selected as a default, and whenthere is a user selection, a corresponding style is selected.

A process of forming style information to be used to render script “Text1” will now be explained. Since the script “Text 1” indicates astylegroup “Title”, non-selectable information that is included in thestylegroup “Title” and is not changed by user selection is selected. Ifa style “Large” is selected by the user, selectable information that isincluded in the style is selected. Then, the non-selectable informationof the stylegroup “Title” and the selectable information of the style“Large” of the stylegroup “Title” are combined to form a complete set ofstyle information.

A process of forming style information to be used to render script “Text2” will now be explained. First, since the script “Text 2” indicates astylegroup “Script”, non-selectable information that is included in thestylegroup “Script” and is not changed by user selection is selected. Ifa style “Large” is selected by the user, selectable information that isincluded in the style “Large” is selected. Then, the non-selectableinformation of the stylegroup “Script” and the selectable information ofthe style “Large” of the stylegroup “Script” are combined to form acomplete set of style information.

A process of forming style information required to render each scriptitem in the presentation information formed as shown in FIG. 4B will nowbe explained with reference to FIGS. 8B and 8C. FIGS. 8B and 8C arediagrams illustrating how style information required to render eachscript item is selected for the presentation information formed as shownin FIG. 4B.

FIG. 8B will be used to illustrate a process of forming a complete setof style information required to render script text when the style isnot changed by the user. Each script of dialog information indicates oneof one or more stylegroups included in a styleset. When there is nochange in the style by the user, all style information items(information for text rendering) required for script text included inthe stylegroup indicated by a script are used to form a complete set ofstyle information. When there is a style change by the user, one of oneor more styles included in each stylegroup is selected, and informationincluded in the style selected by the user is applied to the informationto render text included in the stylegroup to form a complete set ofstyle information.

Referring to 8B, since the script “Text 1” indicates the stylegroup“Title”, information to render text included in the stylegroup “Title”is selected and used to form a complete set of style information to beused to render the script text.

Also, since the script “Text 2” indicates the stylegroup “Script”,information to render text included in the stylegroup “Script” isselected and used to form a complete set of style information to be usedto render the script text.

FIG. 8C will be used to explain a process of forming a complete set ofstyle information required to render script text when the style ischanged by the user. Since the script “Text 1” indicates the stylegroup“Title”, information to render text included in the stylegroup “Title”is selected. If the style “Large” is selected by the user, selectableinformation that is included in the style “Large” is selected.Selectable information of the style “Large” of the stylegroup “Title” isapplied to the information to render text of the stylegroup “Title” toform a complete set of the style information.

In a process of forming style information to be used for rendering thescript “Text 2”, since the script “Text 2” indicates the stylegroup“Script”, information to render text included in the stylegroup “Script'is selected. If the style “Large” is selected by the user, selectioninformation that is included in the style “Large” is selected. Then, theselectable information of the style “Large” of the stylegroup “Script”is applied to the information to render text of the stylegroup “Script”to form a complete set of style information.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a text based subtitle processing apparatusaccording to an embodiment of the present invention. The text basedsubtitle processing apparatus includes a text subtitle processing unit920 to render text is needed. The text subtitle processing unit 920includes a text subtitle parser 921 to extract presentation informationand dialog information from a subtitle, and a text layout/font renderer922 to generate an image to be output by rendering text according to theextracted presentation information.

After text based subtitle information and font information are read froma disc 900 and stored in a buffer 910, the subtitle is transmitted tothe text subtitle parser 921 of the subtitle processing unit 920, andpresentation information and dialog information are extracted. Theextracted information is transmitted to the text layout/font renderer922 and a composition buffer 933 of a presentation engine 930. The textlayout/font renderer 922 generates an image to be displayed on a displayapparatus by rendering text using the transmitted style information andfont information, and transmits the image to an object buffer 934included in the presentation engine 930.

The subtitle in the form of a bitmap image, is read from the disc 900,input to a coded data buffer 931, processed by a graphic processing unit932, and transmitted to the composition buffer 933 and the object buffer934. The composition buffer 933 receives the object compositioninformation transmitted by the text subtitle parser 921 and the bitmapsubtitle data processed by the graphic processing unit 932, andtransmits control information for screen output to the graphic controlunit 935. The object buffer 934 combines the bitmap subtitle dataprocessed by the graphic processing unit 932 and the rendered textsubtitle object received from the text layout/font renderer 922,generates a graphics plane 940 and outputs the graph plane 940 to thedisplay apparatus by referring to a color lookup table (CLUT) 950.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a text based subtitle processingmethod according to an embodiment of the present invention. Text basedsubtitle data and font data are read from a disc and stored in a bufferin operation S1010. The subtitle data, which is in the form of a bitmapimage, is transmitted to a presentation engine. Presentation informationand dialog information are extracted from the stored subtitle data inoperation S1020. The presentation information and dialog information areas described above. By using the extracted presentation information anddialog information, text is rendered and an image is generated inoperation S1030. The subtitle data, which is in the form of a bitmapimage transmitted to the presentation engine and the rendered andgenerated image are combined and output in operation S1040. Thecombination of the bitmap data and the rendered image is as describedabove with reference to FIG. 9.

Described above is forming a style to render text of a text subtitlehaving a text format and outputting the text on a screen in order todisplay scripts to move pictures. In the present invention, a pluralityof styles that may be selected by a user are provided by a producer, andwhen a script is output, the user selects one of the plurality of stylesto change the output style of the script. Accordingly, a styleset,stylegroups, and styles of the present invention may further includefields to record information required for provided scripts of movingpictures. That is, the styleset described in the present inventionincludes only the stylegroups, but in addition to the stylegroup, afield to record additional data such as information to indicate styleinformation may be added, and the stylegroups and styles described inthe present invention may also have additional fields. Also, theposition of each field included in the stylegroup and the style may bechanged according to implementation of a text subtitle.

The present invention may also be embodied as computer readable code ona computer readable recording medium. The computer readable recordingmedium may be any data storage device that may store data which may bethereafter read by a computer system. Examples of the computer readablerecording medium include read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory(RAM), CD-ROMs, magnetic tapes, floppy disks, optical data storagedevices, and carrier waves (such as data transmission through theInternet). The computer readable recording medium may also bedistributed over network coupled computer systems so that the computerreadable code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion.

According to the present invention as described above, the output styleof a subtitle is defined by a stylegroup and a style included in astylegroup, and each sentence of a movie script specifies a predefinedstylegroup or style such that the amount of data for a subtitle and theamount of data to be processed when the subtitle is output may begreatly reduced.

Also, by specifying the output format of a subtitle as a stylegroup or astyle, the output format cannot be completely changed by a user, and theintention of a producer may be effectively reflected. Also, a style or astylegroup may be selected by a user such that the user may select adesired output style.

Although a few embodiments of the present invention have been shown anddescribed, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art thatchanges may be made in these embodiments without departing from theprinciples and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined inthe claims and their equivalents.

1. A non-transitory information storage medium encoded with instructionsfor a reproducing apparatus to output a subtitle using informationprovided by the information storage medium, the information storagemedium comprising: a first region configured to store a dialog set whichcomprises text information of the subtitle; and a second regionconfigured to store a style set which comprises a first styleinformation which is used to render the text information via thereproducing apparatus and a second style information which comprises atleast one value which is used to change the first style information,wherein the first style information comprises an identifier to identifythe first style information, and the dialog set further comprisesinformation indicating the identifier of the first style information. 2.The non-transitory information storage medium of claim 1, wherein thefirst style information is changed by a user's selection.
 3. Thenon-transitory information storage medium of claim 1, wherein the firststyle information is changed by adding the at least one value includedin the second style information to at least one value included in thefirst style information or subtracting the at least one value includedin the second style information from the at least one value included inthe first style information.
 4. A non-transitory information storagemedium encoded with instructions for a reproducing apparatus to output asubtitle using information provided by the information storage medium,the information storage medium comprising: a first region configured tostore a dialog set which comprises text information of the subtitle; anda second region configured to store a style set which comprises a firststyle information which is used to render the text information via thereproducing apparatus and a plurality of second style information whichcomprises at least one value which is used to change the first styleinformation, wherein the first style information comprises an identifierto identify the first style information, and the dialog set furthercomprises information indicating the identifier of the first styleinformation.
 5. The non-transitory information storage medium of claim4, wherein the first style information is changed by a user's selection.6. The non-transitory information storage medium of claim 4, wherein thefirst style information is changed by adding the at least one valueincluded in the plurality of second style information to at least onevalue included in the first style information or subtracting the atleast one value included in the plurality of second style informationfrom the at least one value included in the first style information. 7.A reproducing apparatus for reproducing a subtitle from an informationstorage medium storing a style set and a dialog set, the reproducingapparatus comprising: a reading unit which reads the style set and thedialog set from the information storage medium; and a rendering unitwhich renders the subtitle by using the style set and the dialog set,wherein the dialog set comprises text information of the subtitle, thestyle set comprises a first style information which is used to renderthe text information via the reproducing apparatus and a second styleinformation which comprises at least one value which is used to changethe first style information, the first style information comprises anidentifier to identify the first style information, and the dialog setfurther comprises information indicating the identifier of the firststyle information.
 8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the first styleinformation is changed by a user's selection.
 9. The apparatus of claim7, wherein the first style information is changed by adding the at leastone value included in the second style information to at least one valueincluded in the first style information or subtracting the at least onevalue included in the second style information from the at least onevalue included in the first style information.
 10. A reproducingapparatus for reproducing a subtitle from an information storage mediumstoring a style set and a dialog set, the reproducing apparatuscomprising: a reading unit which reads the style set and the dialog setfrom the information storage medium; and a rendering unit which rendersthe subtitle by using the style set and the dialog set, wherein thedialog set comprises text information of the subtitle, the style setcomprises a first style information which is used to render the textinformation via the reproducing apparatus and a plurality of secondstyle information which comprises at least one value which is used tochange the first style information, the first style informationcomprises an identifier to identify the first style information, and thedialog set further comprises information indicating the identifier ofthe first style information.
 11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein thefirst style information is changed by a user's selection.
 12. Theapparatus of claim 10, wherein the first style information is changed byadding the at least one value included in the plurality of second styleinformation to at least one value included in the first styleinformation or subtracting the at least one value included in theplurality of second style information from the at least one valueincluded in the first style information.